


the dance that called for a nightmare

by mandubin



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Dark, Fluff, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Horror, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Internalized Homophobia, Kidnapping, M/M, Mystery, Secrets, Thriller, based off 3am thoughts and horror writing prompts + small town gothic, but just know that almost this whole story includes mentions of violence and other dark elements, my first txt fic wow, not to the members tho, small town horror, so i'll be including tws for all the chapters, there are a lot of potentially triggering elements, txt horror!au, we r in for a ride, will add more tags as the story goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:34:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandubin/pseuds/mandubin
Summary: when soobin's inability to say no leaves him stuck in a town with a dark past and an even darker future, it's all he can do to stay in place and not run, screaming.however, trouble has always taken a liking to him. and in this town, trouble arrives in the form of choi yeonjun.secrets reveal themselves one after the other, and soobin comes to find out that he really, really hates secrets.alternatively: the txt small town horror!au that no one asked for but you're all going to get
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Kang Taehyun, Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 68
Kudos: 66





	1. one: of dust and vacuums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeonjun smiles, and Soobin isn’t sure what it is, but it seems to be teetering on the edge of a warning and a plea. 
> 
> Leave, the voice in his head interprets for him, a strange sound of begging and caution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi
> 
> so here's what i've been up to for the last 48 or so hours lol
> 
> updates will be a bit irregular, but i'll try to keep the pace i have going on now
> 
> tw: nothing for this chap, just some creepy talk

Soobin waves a hand in front of his face, desperately trying to get his eyes to stop watering from the dust in the room.

“Dusty, huh? Sorry about that. It’s been awhile since anyone new has moved in,” his new landlord apologizes sheepishly. He’s a nice man who seems a little bit spacey, considering he looks to be barely past 30. In the past twenty minutes since Soobin has met him, he’s already drifted off mid-sentence twice, as if someone had pressed the pause button on his brain. 

Soobin, ever the nice guy, shakes his head quickly as he blinks the remaining tears away. “No worries. It’s, uh, understandable.”

His landlord quirks an eyebrow as he passes him the keys. “You’re here for what again? School, was it?” A distant glaze appears over his eyes for a second or two and Soobin patiently waits, in case the older man wasn’t done talking. 

Sure enough, the man blinks and continues as if he hadn’t just disappeared halfway through his own sentence. “Ol’ Cullif ain’t exactly a tourist hotspot,” he says with a chuckle.

“Yeah, school project. A sort of report for my course in university,” Soobin replies politely. Truth be told, the landlord’s behaviour was starting to creep him out just a little, but he’d rather be buried alive than come off as rude to an elder. 

Probably a result of his parents’ strict upbringing.

“Ah! A university student! I take it you’ll be studying at our local community college for the time being, then?”

“Yes, I start next Tuesday.” 

The man chuckles. “That’s nice, it’s nice there. Reminds me—” he trails off again, this time looking slightly troubled.

Soobin waits, feels the slight chill of goosebumps raising on his arms as the man’s gaze becomes a little too vacant for his liking.

“Anyway. My nephew should be coming around soon, made him agree to come over and help you clean up a bit. He should be pretty excited, I think; s’been awhile since we’ve met anyone new.” The landlord clears his throat and looks around for a bit before turning to smile at Soobin. 

“I’ll be leaving now. Let me know if there’s anything wrong with the place. Rent’s due every 20th.” The landlord leaves (finally) through the door, and Soobin heaves a sigh of relief.

Why was it always him?

Honestly, he should probably stop saying yes to things he wanted to say no to. When the name ‘Cullif’ had appeared on the slides projected onto the board of the classroom, an immediate chatter had started up. 

“Now, let me finish giving you all the locations before you go berserk, alright?” his professor sighs and clears his throat loudly before continuing. “I know very well of all the rumours and legends about the town of Cullif. That is all they are— rumours and legends. I don’t expect any of you to avoid this town simply because of some baseless, small town gossip. By the end of class, I want a name for every town on this list.” 

Cue a unanimous groan. 

By the end of class, there was a name for every town on the professor’s list.

Every town save Cullif. 

Soobin groans inwardly. Okay, sue him for being indecisive. He’d put his name down for two small towns, one of which was a boring seaside one and one of which was an extra lively town that seemed to thrive on its nightlife, both of which were unappealing, but at least they didn’t have strange rumours surrounding them.

He already knew what would come out of the professor’s mouth next.

“Soobin? Since you’ve put your name down for two towns, both of which already have other names, I’m assuming you would also be okay with taking Cullif?”

Soobin tries to avoid eye contact.

He fails.

“Y-yeah.” He clears his throat in a vain attempt to stop sounding so small, despite his tall stature that easily towers over more than half of this class. 

_No! Say no! You are not going to some creepy, weird little town for this!_ The little devil on his shoulder screams.

 _Look at the list. The professor probably spent so long coming up with it and getting permission and all. Do you really wanna be that stubborn brat?_ The little angel, who Soobin is honestly starting to doubt is an actual angel and not just a devil in disguise, scolds. 

Soobin sighs. He’s been doing that a lot these days.

That was how he had ended up here, in some old apartment building that was a little too quiet for his taste, surrounded by inches of dust and a seemingly endless lake of creepy legends.

He absolutely _loved_ it here, he thinks with gritted teeth. Whether this was just pure sarcasm or a hopeless attempt at hypnotizing himself that all was well remained a mystery even to himself.

As he’s regretting his apparent lack of a backbone, he hears a knock on his door.

“Coming!” he calls. He hurries to open it.

A shock of pink hair greets him, and as Soobin takes a second, better look, also a vacuum cleaner.

“Hey. My uncle sent me to help you,” the newcomer greets casually. He’s dressed in a simple black t-shirt and some straight cut jeans, which offers Soobin a sort of comfort. 

Maybe he’s desperate to find a straw of familiarity to cling to, but at least the boy in front of him is dressed like a normal person his age.

Wow, he really is getting desperate.

“Hey, thanks for coming by.” Soobin opens the door wider to let the other boy (and the vacuum cleaner!) in. “I’m Soobin.”

“I know. I’m Choi Yeonjun.” the boy— _Yeonjun,_ Soobin tries to commit to his admittedly weak memory— looks around the place and sighs. “Looks like we have a lot to start on. Good thing I brought this vacuum cleaner, huh? Imagine doing all this with brooms.” 

Soobin shudders at the thought as he and Yeonjun start doing something, anything, to rid the place of all this dust. They take turns vacuuming, Yeonjun starting first with the living room as Soobin runs to the bathroom to fill a pail with water from the tap and starts wiping down the windows with wet rags. 

They do this in silence. Soobin has always appreciated silence over needless noise, but he can’t shake the strange uneasiness that he’s been feeling ever since he crossed the sign announcing that _You Are Now in Cullif, population: 1,902._

He takes advantage of a break in Yeonjun’s vacuuming to start a conversation.

“Hey, how old are you?”

 _Great start,_ he assures himself.

 _Never mind,_ he takes it back when he sees Yeonjun looking at him curiously— and a little warily.

“I’m 21 this year.” he replies. 

“Oh, I’m 20. You’re Korean, too, right?” Soobin quickly adds on, not wanting to come off as stalkerish, “I-I, uh, guessed because of your name.”

Yeonjun nods. “Yeah. I don’t really speak it, though. I barely know enough to pass kindergarten, probably.”

“It’s alright. Me too.”

There’s another bout of silence. 

Soobin has never wiped a window this dirty in his life.

Yeonjun starts vacuuming again.

—

After about two and a half hours, all of which was spent in uncomfortable silence between them as well as the incessant roar of the vacuum, they’re finally done with the apartment. Well, the living room, kitchen, bedroom and singular bathroom are spotless thanks to Yeonjun’s weirdly good vacuuming skills and Soobin’s eventual familiarity with the mop and some wet rags. The storeroom could wait for another day.

They sit on the sofa with some cold drinks that Soobin had luckily prepared beforehand, just in case he would come across some friendly neighbour or something.

“Thanks so much for your help. I don’t think I would have managed all this on my own this quickly.” Soobin isn’t usually a conversation starter, but his instincts were yelling at him to say _something,_ anything, before he makes the other boy feel uncomfortable for staying in silence for the last few hours.

“No problem. My uncle pays me, so I don’t really mind.” Yeonjun is sitting at the other end of the sofa (which he had made sure to give a once-over with the vacuum as well and which Soobin had attacked with a full-on shower of his antibacterial spray). Apart from the literal, tangible distance between them, Soobin feels like there’s also another, more subtle wall between him and Yeonjun, but he can’t quite place his finger on the why and how.

“You know, we don’t get outsiders here very often,” Yeonjun says abruptly. 

He’s fiddling with the bottle in his hands. 

“Really? Your uncle said the same thing, actuall—” 

“Like, at all. It’s been— been awhile.” the pink-haired boy takes a deep breath before he suddenly turns to look at Soobin, his eyes somehow both wary and sincere at the same time.

“Outsiders don’t do good here. And I mean this in the least mean, hurtful way possible, but you should leave.” 

Soobin’s a little taken aback, but he can’t say he didn’t expect it. Yeonjun hadn’t even tried to strike a conversation and had decidedly kept his distance from Soobin the whole time. It was no wonder that he’d say something like that.

Protectiveness over his hometown, perhaps?

“I can’t,” Soobin finds himself saying. “It’s for uni. I leave now, and I flunk my entire course.”

“Still.” Yeonjun frowns, then sighs.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

After a few minutes of near suffocating silence, during which Yeonjun finishes his drink, he finally talks again.

This time, his demeanour has changed to one of a happy camper. “Uni, right? You’ll probably see me often. I’m assuming you’re in journalism, which is one of my subjects.” He stands up to leave and Soobin hurries to open the door for him. 

Yeonjun smiles, and Soobin isn’t sure what it is, but it seems to be teetering on the edge of a warning and a plea. 

_Leave,_ the voice in his head interprets for him, a strange sound of begging and caution.

“See you around, Soobin. Say hi if we end up in the same class, ‘kay?” Yeonjun leaves, waving behind him casually, just the way he had come.

Soobin waves for a little bit, even after realizing that the other boy doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head and can’t see Soobin anymore.

 _Strange,_ his mind supplies. _Uncanny._

He chooses to ignore it, instead flopping on the sofa and deciding to stress over what was for dinner instead.

Still, his mind gives him a last poke at his foreseeable future.

_I’ll be here for a whole four months._

“It’ll be fine,” he says aloud. 

The little angel on his shoulder nods, while the little devil chooses to sigh.

_Same, little devil. Same._

With a sigh, he gets up and decides to just make cup noodles. 

He was in for a long four months.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first chapter up!! updates will be a bit more frequent for now because i'm writing a lot and i wanna make sure you all have some context to start this story off with, so it's gonna be a double update. please leave comments, they really do make my day ;-; thank you for reading and stick around <3 have a great day and stay safe!!


	2. two: of dogs (or the lack thereof)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before he walks away, he tilts his head and looks at Soobin right in the eyes, and Soobin almost feels his heart drop. 
> 
> “Think about it, will you?”
> 
> With that, he leaves, and Soobin is yet again left with a whole bunch of questions and no one to answer them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo here's the double update
> 
> hopefully having more context and a bit more body to this story helps!!
> 
> tw: mention of kidnappings, socially anxious internal monologue

A few days pass, and Soobin uses the time he has before his classes start to familiarize himself with the immediate area around his apartment.

He’s lucky that it’s so near to the community college. It’s about a ten minute walk, seven if he runs, maybe. There’s a couple of restaurants down the block in the opposite direction of the community college, as well as a convenience store and a pet shop. There’s even a supermarket about fifteen minutes away. He feels some slight dismay when he finds out that the nearest hospital is an hour away and not even in the town itself, as well as when he realizes that he’s half an hour away from the nearest bus stop. However, he’s already convinced himself that he’ll be spending most of his time either at class or in his apartment, so he’s not too beaten up about it.

Something he’s realized is the lack of a nightlife this town has. He should have foreseen it, seeing as the majority of people he’s come across are either middle-aged (and also, strangely, about as spacey as his landlord, but he chooses not to dwell on that too much) or just old. Still, he found it weird that there were little to no people who left their houses after the ripe old hour of eight p.m. 

Yesterday, he had stopped by the convenience store to pick up some last-minute necessities at about 10 p.m, and the cashier had looked at him as if he were a ghost.

He’s somewhat comfortable in his apartment now. One of his traits that he was just a little proud of was his adapting skills. To be fair, it had to be expected of him since he was usually thrown into less-than-familiar situations because of his inability to say  _ no _ or  _ I’m busy  _ or  _ no, I really don’t want to be here right now and please don’t make me say yes because I know I will anyway but still.  _

That last one was really relevant nowadays.

While he had managed to settle into some semblance of familiarity, if not comfort, he still couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that seemed to follow him around sometimes when he stared out of his window at night for too long, or when he lay awake in bed in the darkness, unable to sleep as soundly and wondering who else— or, rather,  _ what _ else— was awake now, too.

Sometimes he left the lights on, just in case.

He hadn’t met anyone after that moving day, when he had talked to— more like been threatened, really, by Choi Yeonjun. Maybe it was for the better. Soobin had been feeling tired but slightly jumpy for the past few days, and he was chalking it up to the fact that he was about to be thrown into a new class full of new strangers that he had to work to warm up to yet again. If anything, he was even more wary after experiencing Yeonjun’s less-than-welcoming conversation with him that day.

Not that anyone should be ecstatic to meet him or whatever. He was just  _ him _ , after all. Choi Soobin, tall but small on the inside, sometimes cynical and sometimes too forgiving, with a weak social battery and an affinity for nice conversations with people he enjoyed the company of.

That particular list was starting to become very short.

On Monday, Soobin thinks he’s finally psyched himself up enough for four months of classes with strangers, so he decides to turn off the light by his bedside and also the voice in his mind who likes to remind him that  _ they might not like you what if they don’t want you here maybe they’ll hate you why are you here why are you here wh—  _

Fuck.

Maybe he isn’t that prepared after all.

— 

Bright and early and at 9 sharp in the morning, Soobin wakes up to the unwelcome glare of the sun in his face. 

The third time since he’d moved here. He really ought to invest in better curtains soon.

Groggily, he goes through the motions like he does every morning. Opens eyes, closes eyes, forces them open again. Sit up, stretch because your limbs are too long and they get sore easily, then nearly doze off. Walk to the bathroom, nearly stumble but only just  _ nearly _ , he’s not a klutz, you know. Wash your face, brush your teeth, wonder why your hair looks like that. 

By 9:24 a.m, he’s awake and dressed. 

He still has some time before his 10:30 a.m class, and he debates internally whether he should hide in his apartment until 10 a.m so he has barely enough time to find his classroom but also gets to avoid possibly meeting new people (new people  _ his age _ , which is somehow scarier) or if he should head there early and at least get himself used to the route toward uni. 

After chomping on some plain slices of bread and taking a gulp or two of some canned coffee that he’d bought the night before, he decides on the latter and, subsequently, against his own wishes.

He’s glad that this town doesn’t have some sort of weird, ingrained dress code. He doesn’t look  _ too _ out of place in his t-shirt, cardigan and black jeans, although he supposes his dark blue hair does stand out just a little bit. 

He’s so distracted by his thoughts of being at a new campus that he doesn’t even realize when he steps into said campus until he finally looks up and notices the long, rather squat building of three floors. The building itself looks a little more worn, a little worse for wear than the picture Soobin had seen on the website, but that was to be expected.

The moment he arrives, he notices the strange lack of hustle and bustle that he usually associates with school. There are students milling around, sure, and they sound like they’re chatting and whatnot, but there’s a decided lack of excitement in the air that makes Soobin dread the rest of his days here a little bit more.

He might be an introvert, sure, but he was still a person, after all.

“Classroom S3-02,” he mutters to himself. He quickly deducts that the S must stand for South, seeing as there’s a big, sort of chipped N painted on the wall next to him and a smaller ‘North Block’ written below it. 

_ South Block, level 3, classroom 02.  _

He heaves a sigh of relief at the fact that he didn’t need to ask for help from a stranger and heads to the lift. 

After looking at the directory on his phone last night, he realized with a certain disappointment that there were only two lifts in the whole school, and they were on the North Block and West Block, respectively. That meant stairs most of the time, since he was pretty sure the lifts would be pretty packed.

Still, though. Population 1,902. He knew there were about 700 students in this community college, which meant that about 1,200 others were just spacey middle-aged people and older people who usually stayed at home.

No wonder there was barely any nightlife.

As he gets into the lift, which is surprisingly empty at what he assumes is a typical class time, he checks his phone for the time.

_ 10:03,  _ it seems to tease him.

Great. Now he was 27 minutes too early in a brand new school, a brand new class, and a brand new town.

He almost purposely walks a little slower to his classroom. The third floor is even more quiet than the other floors, maybe because it seemed like most of it was offices for the professors. 

Even so, the corridors seem dim, despite the LED lights that glow from above him. It’s bright, sure, but there’s a sort of artificialness about the light that sort of unnerves him. It appears as if the shadows pool more in the corners untouched by the glare of the lights, and as he walks down the corridor, he can’t help but feel like  _ something’s just a bit off. _

Finally, he arrives at a classroom with a door that’s marked with a small plaque that reads, simply, ‘02’.

After checking the directory on his phone again, he confirms that it’s S3-02 and takes a deep breath before opening the door tentatively.

As expected, it’s empty. He doesn’t really know what to do, and he doesn’t want to risk turning on the lights or anything because what if he accidentally breaks something? 

So he just walks in and sits at a table. The classroom is built a bit like a lecture hall, but without all the steps and whatnot. Eight long, faux-wood tables with three seats each, a real wood desk in the front of the classroom pushed more toward the left, a small podium in the center of the room with a projector and screen on the wall behind it and a whiteboard just to its left.

It’s a small setup, clearly designed for a small class. Soobin feels rather relieved that the whole journalism class here seems to be about the same size as his tutorial class back in uni, seeing as this was supposed to be a lecture, which meant that all the journalism students would be attending. 

He checks his timetable again. He really only had two classes to attend here: one was journalism and the other was intercultural communication. They had somehow managed to condense the remainder of his classes back at uni into those two subjects, which Soobin was thankful for. At least he’d have time to do nothing.

When he checks his phone once more, he realizes that he’s basically spent the last ten or so minutes just blanking out, which makes it 10:21 a.m. Students are starting to come in, and his assumptions about it being a small class are confirmed when it’s 10:28 a.m and the classroom is only half full. 

He counts about 12 students, not including himself, when a familiar head of pink hair enters the room.

When said pink-haired boy notices Soobin, he makes a beeline for him, and Soobin is a little thrown off by what seems like a complete 180 degree change in attitude from the last time he met Yeonjun.

The first thing he does is slide in comfortably next to Soobin, placing his bag on the floor by his feet.

“Soobin.” Yeonjun smiles in way of greeting, and Soobin nods, remembering the way the boy had warned him to leave just four days ago. 

“Hey.”

The last few students trickle in, bringing the head count to 17 (This is a  _ really small class,  _ Soobin thinks) and at 10:31, their professor walks in.

“Hello, nice to see you all on time today.” she starts. She looks to be about 30-something, which leaves Soobin wary that she’s another spacey middle-aged person, but she seems more alert and present than anyone else around her age who Soobin had encountered in the last few days, which comforts him.

“We have a new student here today, actually. Mr— Choi? Soobin Choi?” she reads off of her folder. Soobin stands up and bows slightly out of habit to the rest of the class as well as his professor. 

“My name is Choi Soobin, and I’ll be joining the class for a few months for my final year project.” he introduces briefly. No need for any other embellishments, since most of his classmates just look at him and clap half-heartedly.

“Since he’s new around here, make sure to reach out and help him if he has any questions. Now—” the professor ( _ Professor Rissa Mantine,  _ Yeonjun provides quietly) says, turning to switch on the projector. “Where did we leave off?”

Two hours of class pass by without incident, and Soobin is relieved to be in a semi-familiar environment again. He takes notes on his laptop and listens, but is occasionally distracted by Yeonjun beside him stretching silently or nudging him to point at some other classmate who was dozing off. 

“That’s all for today’s class. See you guys tomorrow, 2pm, as usual. Have a good day and watch out for yourselves out there.” Professor Mantine leaves, and Soobin starts to pack up, too.

“You got any other classes today?” Yeonjun asks him. Soobin shakes his head. 

“No, I have two classes tomorrow, though. You?” Soobin asks. He’s decided to just go with the flow and not hold anything against Yeonjun for the if-it-could-even-be-called-a-welcome welcome that day. 

Yeonjun shakes his head. “Wanna get lunch?”

Soobin nods, and so they head to a restaurant not far off from school, in the opposite direction of Soobin’s apartment.

“How long will you be here for?” the two of them walk down the corridor and head toward the lift. 

“Four months,” Soobin answers. 

They strike up an easygoing, non-committal conversation as they head toward the restaurant.  _ Where are you from? How many students at your uni? Woah, that’s a lot. Play any sports? _

When they reach the restaurant, Yeonjun heads straight for a table that already seems occupied by someone who looks to be around their age. Before Soobin can say anything, Yeonjun suddenly reaches over to ruffle their hair.

“Hey!” the person turns around and visibly relaxes when he sees that it’s someone he knows. “Ah, it’s just you.” 

Said person is a boy with round eyes and an easygoing smile, which he flashes at Soobin as the blue-haired boy sits down next to Yeonjun and across from the other boy. 

“My name is Beomgyu. You are?”

“I’m Soobin, nice to meet you.” 

“Soobin here is doing some project. He’ll be here for four months, which is why I brought him along. Can’t have him being too lonely for that long, you know?” Soobin doesn’t know why, but the way Yeonjun said that makes him feel a bit like a younger sibling, or a pet that one had to carry around.

He isn’t sure how he feels about it.

Beomgyu just looks at Soobin, and his eyes seem to carry a slight hint of melancholy and an edge of caution that disappears just as quickly as it had appeared.

“Four months, huh.”

That wasn’t a question, more of a statement that Beomgyu mutters as he seems to disappear into his own thoughts for a while.

Soobin decides that he’ll just have to put up with this sort of eerie, wary feeling that everything and everyone here is wrapped up in.

— 

As they eat, Soobin notices a couple of ‘MISSING’ posters stuck here and there around the restaurant.

“There are kids going missing?” He asks, and Yeonjun just makes a sort of noise between a sigh and a scoff. 

“Yeah. It’s always been like that.”

“Not just kids, either. People our age have gone missing, too.” Beomgyu adds, and Soobin’s eyes widen.

“D-did any of them come back? Or were found?” Soobin nibbles at a fry, his appetite half gone. Beomgyu and Yeonjun shake their heads in unison.

“Happens every week at this rate. Either it’s some 5 year old or someone our age.” Yeonjun supplies, not helping Soobin’s rising nerves. “You’ve probably already realized that no one really goes out at night, not after dark. It's a habit at this point.”

There’s a bout of silence, one that threatens to swallow Soobin up. He’s sad for those kids, yes, but he’s also  _ scared.  _ How were Beomgyu and Yeonjun being all nonchalant about this? He feels uncomfortable, and his palms are prickling slightly like they always do when he gets too nervous.

“Has anyone done anything about it? I mean, did their parents ever try finding them, or— well, the police?”

Yeonjun glances at him, then reaches out a hand to pat Soobin’s shoulder softly. “Don’t worry yourself too much. That pretty face is gonna get all worn out soon if you do.”

Soobin sort of registers it, but decides to put that on hold.

“Yeonjun’s right.” Beomgyu pipes up, using the condensation on his cup to wet his salt-stained fingers and drying them off with a napkin. “Getting too worried will get you nowhere.”

Soobin still worries, but when faced with Beomgyu and Yeonjun’s apparent hopelessness, he can do nothing but continue poking at his fries.

“By the way, Soobin.” Beomgyu says, and Soobin looks at the other boy, expecting another nonchalant question about school or hobbies to pop up.

Instead, the black-haired boy looks at him with a certain intensity that’s hard to pinpoint, but also hard to look away from. His eyes seem to be pinning Soobin to his seat, a sudden seriousness between his brow that contrasted the melancholic, almost performative expression he had before. 

“Have you noticed that there are no dogs here?” 

Soobin blinks once.

Twice.

Stares.

_ Is he serious? He looked all serious and stuff, but that’s the question that he asked? The fuck?  _ Soobin thinks. A smaller, less significant voice pipes up,  _ Are there any dogs, though? Have we seen one yet? _

His thoughts are loud, but he stays silent as he looks at Beomgyu, not knowing if the other boy expected a serious answer.

Luckily, Yeonjun swoops in to (sort of) save the day. 

“Beom, you have class at 2, right? Shouldn’t you be going?”

And in a snap, Beomgyu is yet again the same boy Soobin had met half an hour ago. Bright, easygoing, a little clumsy as he slings his bag over his shoulder and says goodbye, I’ll probably see you soon, Yeonjun, you too!

Soobin can’t shake the creepy weight that has settled onto his shoulders even as he watches the other boy leave.

“What was that about?” he turns to Yeonjun, who’s sipping lightheartedly at his milkshake.

The other boy just turns to look at Soobin, who is reminded of the intensity of his stare, the strange mix of caution and a plea that resided under those lashes and in those almost fox-like eyes. 

Soobin almost feels like Yeonjun is reading his  _ mind. _

“I mean,  _ have  _ you seen any dogs since you got here?”

Yeonjun finishes his milkshake and stands up. “Well, I have to go. Got to pick up my cousin from school. See you tomorrow, Soobin.”

Before he walks away, he tilts his head and looks at Soobin right in the eyes, and Soobin almost feels his heart drop. 

“Think about it, will you?”

With that, he leaves, and Soobin is yet again left with a whole bunch of questions and no one to answer them. 

There’s one thing he does know for sure, though.

_ This town is definitely more than it seems. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all liked the chapter!! again, please leave comments, they really make my day <3 thank you for reading, please look forward to the next chap, have a great day and stay safe!!


	3. three: of snacks and outsiders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just...safety purposes,” Yeonjun says, suddenly looking a little distraught. To Soobin, the pink-haired boy has been upholding a sort of calm, unruffled exterior, so this sudden crack in the mask leaves him quiet as Beomgyu turns to look at him. 
> 
> “Three weeks ago, Yeonjun brought it up with another kid from school. Day after, the kid disappeared,” Beomgyu says quietly. “We— well, especially him— have been trying not to talk about it with anyone else apart from each other.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're on a roll!!
> 
> heehoo update
> 
> tw: talk of death, suicide, kidnappings, morbid humour (?)

What do you call a feeling of subtle yet unmistakable dread?

Soobin would very much like to know. 

There was this weird tension in the air of Cullif. The sun could be high up in the sky and the birds could be chirping a whole orchestra-worthy performance, but there would still be a chill in the air, one that permeated through Soobin’s bones and left him feeling shaky and nervous when he dwelled on it for too long.

He could ignore it, just like he has been the past week, but it’s when another kidnapping happens that he truly starts to get riled up.

It’s only been two days since he talked to Yeonjun and Beomgyu. Since then, he’d had lunch with them again, as well as brunch just a couple hours before. He wasn’t sure if he could call them his friends, but they were people he knew, and maybe that’s why they were the ones he went to when news of another kidnapping happening last night popped up on his phone.

“Yeonjun! Beomgyu!” Soobin calls out, spotting the pair just slightly ahead of him. The two of them turn around and wave at Soobin as he jogs up to them.

“What’s up?”

“There was another kidnapping last night.” Soobin says instantly, and the other two look at each other in what could be written off as exasperation. However, Soobin senses a sort of resignation and silent defeat as well.

He doesn’t know what that means, but he continues anyway.

“See, last night—”

Yeonjun abruptly presses his hand to Soobin’s mouth, successfully shutting the taller boy up and stunning him at the same time.

“Not here. Not now.” he whispers fervently, quietly, nervously. Soobin blinks at the sudden change of tone and tries to ignore the pink-haired boy’s palm over his mouth.

When Yeonjun is sure that Soobin isn’t going to blurt something else out, he finally puts his hand down. Beomgyu nudges Yeonjun, and Soobin looks at them as they seem to have a conversation purely through their eyes.

After what feels like five whole minutes (of slowly painful silence) Yeonjun finally beckons for Soobin to come a bit closer.

He does so, albeit hesitatingly, and suppresses his shudder when Yeonjun suddenly presses against him and whispers in his ear, 

“Tonight. 8pm. Your place.”

The whisper-command-answer seems to stay in the air between them for just a second longer before Yeonjun pulls back and Soobin is left there as the other two boys head to class.

Tonight? 8pm? My place?

It’s only been a week, and yet Soobin feels like he has ten years' worth of questions.

—

Class ends, and 5pm rolls around.

Soobin finds himself walking slower, wanting to drag out the time between now and the inevitable future.

He doesn't know what Yeonjun and Beomgyu'a secretiveness is all about, but he's sure that there's a reason for it.

Would he like the reason?

6pm, and Soobin has dawdled all he can. He's dropped by two restaurants, only one of which he bought anything from; he went out of his way and further than he usually goes to visit some bookstore too new and too bare to be of any interest to him; he's even spent twenty minutes in a convenience store half the size of his already small apartment just to whittle away at the time.

And yet, after all his attempts at dragging, it's both only and already 6pm.

Maybe he's overreacting, he thinks as he sips on the iced coffee he forced himself to buy out of courtesy for lounging in the restaurant for ten minutes and no purpose. He bought snacks and bread, just to stock up, and they swing in the plastic bag he's holding as he walks toward his apartment.

Maybe he's just overthinking it, and the kidnappings were just kids running away from their parents. Running away from this town that seemed too empty, yet seemed like there was no space for anyone to belong there. 

However, there were too many things that didn't link up. Why wasn't anything reported? That was the most pressing question in his mind. Sure, the police station was far from most of the town, but there were kids going missing almost every week. Surely that was cause for concern?

Soobin takes his keys out of his pocket and unlocks his door. If the missing kids were reported, then why wasn't anything being done about it? He'd seen reports online, but that was always it. Just the report of the missing child, but no promise for investigation, no updates. Just date after date, kidnapping after kidnapping, missing child after missing child.

Something was wrong, and he wanted to know what that something was.

He sets his snacks and bread down on the kitchen counter and moves to the living room with his laptop and coffee. 

This town is creepy, but failing this subject is scary too, he reminds himself. The little devil on his shoulder bounces up and down in furious curiosity, wanting to know more about the missing children, while the little angel nods fervently at his inner monologue. 

Soobin shrugs both of them off and decides to blank everything out. If he had to stay curious, so be it. He could stay curious and work on his project for two hours. He could give himself that.

— 

Soobin finally looks up from his laptop.

The sky has dimmed, and it's almost completely dark out. Streaks of navy and dusty lavender paint the darkening horizon, dotted with wispy clouds here and there. 

It would have been beautiful if the prospect of nightfall in this town wasn't so sinister.

At 8p.m on the dot, his doorbell rings.

"Coming!" he says, and he opens the door to see Yeonjun and Beomgyu as promised.

Beomgyu lifts up a plastic bag similar to the one Soobin has lying on his kitchen counter. "We bought snacks."

The two of them make themselves comfortable in Soobin's living room, with Yeonjun seated on the floor opposite Soobin and Beomgyu, who are seated at both ends of the sofa.

"Now," Yeonjun says, opening a bag of gummy worms and throwing a couple into his mouth. "What do you wanna know?"

"Everything," Soobin says. "Well, not everything everything. Just— what happened to the kids? Did their parents not press for an investigation? I've searched online and kids have been reported as missing ever since sixty years ago in this town, but they had intervals of at least a few months, if not a year in between. That's already worrying enough, but now kids are disappearing weekly, yet there's never any follow up."

"Calm down, cowboy," Beomgyu laughs, but there's no real mirth in it, only a hint of despair and mostly emptiness. "We'll tell you everything since you wanna know so bad. Yeonjun?"

"Let's start with the people who got kidnapped." Yeonjun brushes his sour sanding covered fingers off on his jeans as he raises one finger. "Either young, impressionable kids, or young adults our age. Strange demographic, especially when you consider the different tactics you would need to kidnap a 5 year old versus a 19 year old." 

"Yeah, that's true," Soobin ventures. "A 5 year old would definitely be easier to trick verbally, whereas you'd at least need some physical strength to kidnap a whole 19 year old."

"Next, frequency." Yeonjun ticks off on his fingers. "Used to happen every year, then every month, and now, every week."

Soobin nods. He's more invested in this than anything else he's ever been interested in. 

“Doesn’t it almost feel like whoever’s behind this is trying to reach a deadline?”

As Beomgyu says this, he’s munching on some type of prawn cracker with an almost child-like demeanour that is decidedly jarring against the ominous words he’s just said.

“That...actually makes a lot of sense.” Soobin admits. He hasn’t taken a single snack, too caught up in the mystery of it all. “Why were you being so secretive about it?”

“Just...safety purposes,” Yeonjun says, suddenly looking a little distraught. To Soobin, the pink-haired boy has been upholding a sort of calm, unruffled exterior, so this sudden crack in the mask leaves him quiet as Beomgyu turns to look at him. 

“Three weeks ago, Yeonjun brought it up with another kid from school. Day after, the kid disappeared,” Beomgyu says quietly. “We— well, especially him— have been trying not to talk about it with anyone else apart from each other.”

“Then why—”

“You were so persistent that we sort of felt bad.” Beomgyu pops a handful of snacks into his mouth and chews as he continues, “Yeonjun was really hesitant, though.”

“Remember when I told you outsiders don’t do good here?” Yeonjun asks quietly, his voice weighed down by something akin to guilt plus a sort of somber determination. His eyes flit up to meet Soobin’s, and the blue-haired boy is once again struck by the intensity of the other’s fox-like gaze. 

Yeonjun straightens up, but his voice is still pressed low.

“Twelve years ago. Newlywed couple moved in from the city. Two weeks later, the wife is found. Hung herself. Another two days later, the husband shoots himself. Out of grief, they say.”

Yeonjun’s face is calm, almost a poker face, but his words betray his emotion.

“Eleven years ago. Someone’s in-laws come and visit. They’re dead in their beds the next morning.

“Eight years ago. We get a new teacher in school. He likes fishing. Twenty days later, he doesn’t show up for class, and two days later, he’s floating, face down on the lake.

“Seven years ago. A family moves in. Their dog goes missing, their youngest daughter runs off to find it, and a day later her shoe is found sticking out of a patch of newly dug up soil in the forest. Buried alive.”

Soobin doesn’t need to ask about what happened to the parents. He sort of got the idea.

Yeonjun finishes his little, horrifying list and raises an eyebrow. 

“You’re the first newcomer after almost five years. Usually, the rumors are enough to keep people away. You’ve probably stumbled upon this one blog, cullifhorrors.com, right?”

Soobin nods, and Yeonjun tilts his head. “Ran by Beomgyu and I, and my cousin. We started that website specifically to keep outsiders away.”

“None of the pictures are fake, by the way! You have no idea how many times I almost got my ass busted for getting those,” Beomgyu pouts. 

“So, Soobin, I’m sorry for the attitude I gave you when we first met, but now you know why.”

Yeonjun shrugs.

“This town really doesn’t like outsiders.”

Soobin feels strangely calm despite having just been told that he might die in a few days, or if he was lucky, weeks.

Then he remembers something.

“Wait, not all newcomers die. My aunt and uncle came back here to clear out my great grandfather’s home and they’re alive and kicking,” Soobin says in confusion.

Both Yeonjun and Beomgyu’s eyebrows shoot up with an uncanny synchronicity that would almost be comical if it weren’t for the mess of feelings inside Soobin right now.

“Your aunt and uncle came here to clear out your great grandfather’s home?” Beomgyu repeats, and the two of them visibly relax. 

“That’s fine! That’s more than fine, actually. That means part of you belongs here. God, wow, that saves us a lot of time and explaining.” Yeonjun chomps down on another handful of gummy worms gleefully. “And here I was, expecting news of you falling off a cliff or something in a week.”

“Excuse me?” Soobin mumbles, paling. Yeonjun waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. That stuff won’t happen to you, then, since you’re not technically a newcomer. You’re revisiting.”

“So only completely new, unrelated newcomers die after coming here?” Soobin asks, and Beomgyu nods. 

“Either they die, or they’re smart enough to leave as soon as possible. That’s always the better option, cos’ they leave and spread more rumours, and those keep more newcomers from visiting the town out of curiosity.”

“They’re not rumours if they’re true, though.” Soobin points out.

Yeonjun finishes off the bag of gummy worms. “Either way, it’s a good thing that you’re not entirely a newcomer, Soobin. Means we can be actual friends instead of us worrying that you’re going to die unexpectedly!”

He sounds a bit— just slightly too chipper while talking about Soobin’s possible death, but Soobin chooses, yet again, to brush it to a side.

“Since you’re so curious about everything, you should start hanging out with us more.” Beomgyu nods at Yeonjun’s proposition. “Beomgyu and I, also my cousin and his best friend; we’re about the only people in this town who actually want to solve or at least get answers about this whole thing.”

Soobin frowns. “No one else in the whole city actually cares? They just let kids go missing?”

“Even if they tried, no one could do anything.” Yeonjun waves a hand aimlessly with a grimace. “The adults here are even less helpful, honestly. Sometimes it feels like I’m talking to a wall. Ask them about the weather, they’ll start a whole conversation about it. Bring up anything about the missing kids, and they get all spacey and evasive.”

Huh. “Weird.” Soobin mumbles, lost in thought about his own musings. So he was right, and it wasn’t just him. Something really was up with the adults in this town.

“Alright, I think we’ve answered all your questions, right?” Yeonjun stands up and brushes his hands off on his jeans. “Beom and I should probably get going. It’s getting late.”

Soobin checks his phone. 10:23 p.m flashes back at him. 

“Isn’t it dangerous to be out at night? Kidnappings and all?” Soobin asks, panicked, even as Yeonjun strolls toward his door with the relaxed air of someone walking in the park. Beomgyu quickly follows and as Soobin opens the door, still worried, Yeonjun turns and looks at him with a smile that’s degrees warmer than anything he’d received while he was here. 

“Don’t worry, Soobinnie. Beom’s sleeping over at mine tonight, and I live just downstairs.”

“Oh.” Soobin’s brow un-creases itself out of realization. “You live here, too?”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, Soobinnie! We can meet my cousin and Kai— that’s his best friend— tomorrow. You’ll love them, Hyunnie asks as many questions as you do.” Yeonjun waves, and Beomgyu does too as they walk toward the elevator.

Soobin watches them leave until they disappear out of sight, then he closes (and locks) his door.

His mind is reeling with all of the information that he’s received today. Kidnappings. Deadline. Dead? Newcomers, dying. And— 

Did Yeonjun call him Soobinnie?

Deciding that it’s too much to brain for one night, Soobin yawns tiredly and heads off to bed. He’ll think about it tomorrow, he assures himself. Nothing much could happen in the nine hours between now and tomorrow morning, right?

He discovers that he’s dead wrong when he tosses and turns all night and finally falls asleep, only to be jolted awake by a scream too loud to just be in his head and the incessant ringing of his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo if u just started reading hi!! and if uve been reading since yesterday hi ily <3 pls leave comments, they make my day!! thanks for reading, have a great day and stay safe!!


	4. four: of psychics and pet stores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sad sigh, a lull in the conversation. Soobin pictures Yeonjun patting Victor’s shoulder sympathetically. 
> 
> “Few days ago, Lucky started eating less. Her fur was coming off in clumps. I separated the two, afraid that whatever Lucky had was contagious, but it was too late.” Another deep sigh. “The two of them are in the back now, both quarantined, and I’m doing all I can but maybe this town really ain’t cut out for dogs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally adding more to the actual plot!! 
> 
> tw: graphic descriptions of a corpse, descriptions of violence +not rlly body horror but yes this is the most graphic one yet

“Soobin?”

Yeonjun’s voice. Soobin hums groggily, still a little shaken by the sheer terror from the scream in his dream last night.

“This is Soobin, right?” There’s an underlying urgency in Yeonjun’s voice. Soobin forces himself to be a little more awake and clears his throat. 

“Yes, yeah, it’s me. Soobin.” Fuck. Well, at least he gave a semi-coherent answer. 

“Listen, Soobin. Something else happened last night. How soon can you come over to my place? Floor below yours, unit 19. It’s a corner lot.”

“Uh.” Soobin blinks hard and feels like his brain is finally moving. “Give me six minutes.”

“Great. See you.” Yeonjun hangs up, and Soobin forces himself to speed through his routine, all while his mind is speeding through various thoughts. Something happened last night? What happened? Kidnapping? But I thought there was never a body, how would Yeonjun have known? It couldn’t be on the news, right? 

He quickly changes into a different T-shirt and a pair of more presentable sweats. Something tells him that whatever happened last night was terribly wrong, not just a kidnapping. Something worse had to have happened. The scream from his nightmare rings in his ears again, as if it was reminding him. 

He grabs his phone, wallet and keys, not forgetting to lock his door as he slides his feet into a pair of old sneakers loosely. He runs down the stairs, since the elevator was probably going to take longer. 

Exactly six minutes later, he arrives at unit 19, and he’s slightly out of breath as he knocks.

Yeonjun opens the door and whistles. “Wow, you’re right on time.”

“Ran here.” Soobin stops for a second to take a deep breath and steady his rapid heartbeat. He walks in and spots an unfamiliar head of blonde hair sitting next to Beomgyu, and they appear to be bickering over something.

“Soobin, this is Taehyun. He’s my cousin. Taehyun, Soobin. He moved in about a week ago.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you.” Taehyun, who has even bigger eyes than Beomgyu and a sharp, straight nose that’s emphasized by his small face, turns back and nudges Beomgyu as a signal to continue their argument.

“So. What happened last night?” Soobin asks. This successfully stalls Taehyun and Beomgyu’s bickering as they all settle in Yeonjun’s living room, a near mirror image of Soobin’s own. 

“We think there was supposed to be another kidnapping last night, but something went wrong and whoever did it jumped straight to getting rid of the evidence.” Yeonjun says. Taehyun takes his phone out and gives Soobin a quick once-over before leaning toward him.

“How bad are you with, like, gore?”

“I didn’t have breakfast yet, so I should be fine,” Soobin says drily. Taehyun giggles at that before putting his serious face back on and showing Soobin his phone screen.

The picture isn’t the most high definition Soobin has ever seen, but after realizing what the picture is of, he’s more than grateful for that. It’s of a body, and while the face is visible, one of a teenage boy, the torso has been mangled in a chillingly precise yet messy way: there are cuts along the entire length of both his arms that intersect with a long incision starting from the Adam’s apple down to the pelvic bone, almost resembling a stickman— or, Soobin realizes with a jolt, a cross.

The mangled part comes in when Soobin notices how ragged the edges of the incisions are. “What happened? Why does it look so— rough? It kind of looks like whoever it was was trying to be all precise.” Then, he sort of blinks and another question reigns in his mind. “How the hell did you even get this picture?”

“Basically, what I’ve gathered is that whoever did this made the incisions, sewed them up, and then ripped through the sutures after they had mostly healed.” The blond casually ignores Soobin’s last question. The words coming out of Taehyun’s mouth are bone-chilling, but his eyes hold a certain intensity to them that differs from Yeonjun’s. They are curious, even morbidly so, and seem to catch onto every little detail. 

“That’s...intense.” Soobin manages weakly. Yeah, it’s a good thing that he hadn’t had breakfast. 

They talk about it a bit more, with mostly Taehyun making (very smart sounding) speculations. Why that particular incision? Did the killer have a motive, or were they simply looking for self-satisfaction? 

The most pressing question, perhaps, was, “Why kill them instantly? Could there really be a deadline?” Yeonjun directs the question to Beomgyu, who shrugs. 

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Beomgyu frowns. “Although it makes you wonder: is this what happens to all the kidnapping victims?”

“I mean, it’s just a guess,” Yeonjun says, to which Taehyun scoffs. 

“When have your guesses ever been wrong?”

When Beomgyu notices Soobin, who probably looks confused, he tilts his head. “Yeonjun here has scary good intuition. Like, he’s basically a walking lie detector.”

“Beom,” Yeonjun groans. Beomgyu ignores him and continues. “When we were in high school, kids were actually scared of him. That’s cos’ if you ever lied to him, he would definitely know.”

“Really?” Soobin isn’t sure if they’re pulling his tail, but based on Beomgyu’s shining eyes and Yeonjun’s apparent embarrassment, he deduces it to be somewhat true. “That’s cool.”

Yeonjun eyes suddenly flash with mischief and he sits up straighter. “You know what’s cool? Beomgyu’s luck, that’s what.”

“Y—” Beomgyu is instantly cut off by Yeonjun’s rapid fire speech. “If I have good intuition, he has even better luck. Never got rained on a day in his life. Never got the wrong order. He’s never even tripped and fell by accident, or forgotten to bring homework to school.”

Soobin’s eyes widen. If he thought Yeonjun’s supposed strong intuition was good, Beomgyu’s is even more plausible and, perhaps, even more useful. “For real? You’re not just a really organized, put-together person?”

Taehyun barks a laugh at that. “Organized? Beomgyu would forget his head if it wasn’t attached to his shoulder sometimes. It’s not that he remembers to bring his homework every day, it just so happens that it’s already sitting in his bag when he leaves for school. He doesn’t bring an umbrella around, it just so happens that it only starts raining once he’s indoors.”

Soobin enjoys their bickering. It gives him a long-needed sense of company, of something like kinship. 

Beomgyu’s eyes flash in indignation as he turns to Taehyun, turns back to Soobin and jabs a thumb in the direction of the blond. “Taehyun’s a human spirit box. No matter if you believe in ghosts or not, Taehyun’s had weird shit happen to him all his life. Too weird to not be, like, kind of supernatural, you know?” Taehyun nudges Beomgyu, less annoyed and more out of habit. 

Now that was interesting. Soobin wasn’t a skeptic, but he’d never had anything solid happen to him that could have made him a true believer, either. 

“What’s the scariest thing that has ever happened to you?” he asks. Taehyun quirks his mouth and Beomgyu pats him on the shoulder excitedly. “The door one, the door one!”

“Oh, damn. Yeah. Nearly forgot about that.” Taehyun shudders. “This happened six years ago, so I was about twelve? I was going upstairs to my room. You know how, when your door is open, there’s this gap where the hinges are between the edge of the door and the actual wall?” 

Soobin nods. 

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t really focusing on anything, but I just happened to glance at the edge of my door when I walked upstairs, and I see an honest-to-God eye staring at me. The room is dark, and the stair lights weren’t on, but the eyes are so pale and the whites of the eyes are almost glowing? Obviously, I nearly piss myself,” Taehyun scoffs. “I literally booked it downstairs and slept in the living room that night.” 

“Then...did anything else happen?”

“Nothing big, no. I heard tapping on my door a couple times, and sometimes my door would creak open or close itself even when there was no wind.” Taehyun shrugs, looking awfully nonchalant for someone who was possibly haunted. 

“We think it’s something to do with the town itself. If your family’s been here for as long as all ours have been, it’s pretty likely that this stuff happens. They’re not really all that much to brag about, either, I see it as just having a little extra help,” Beomgyu says, to which Taehyun nods. 

Yeonjun turns to Soobin. “Wasn’t your great-grandfather from here?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I have any sixth senses or whatever.” Soobin frowns before he remembers, “Ah, I guess I get deja vu a lot.”

“Precognitive dreams?” Taehyun asks, but Soobin shakes his head.

“Nah. Well, none that I can remember. Although—” he recalls the bloodcurdling scream that shook him awake from his sleep last night and shudders. “I guess I did get a dream of some sort yesterday night, but it’s more of a nightmare than anything. I just remember this really painful sounding scream.”

Yeonjun winces before his eyes widen. “Wait, a scream? Male or female?”

Soobin furrows his brows, then says, “Female. So it can’t have been about what happened last night.”

Taehyun keeps looking at Soobin, and the blue-haired boy is starting to feel slightly uneasy when the blond finally averts his gaze.

“Let’s hope you really don’t get precognitive dreams, Soobin, and that the scream you heard really is just going to be a nightmare,” he says, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll get going. I have club. Kai and I will see you later.”

After a chorus of ‘Bye, Taehyun’ and a flurry of waving arms, Yeonjun turns to look at Soobin once again. “Any plans for today, Soobinnie?”

There it is again. Soobin shakes his head. 

“Great. So we have you for the whole day,” Yeonjun smiles at him. 

Soobin smiles back, trying to ignore the slight leap of his heart in his chest.

—

Yeonjun and Beomgyu bring him to the pet store.

It’s a little ways away from the apartment, further south than the row of stores Soobin had explored the length of during the first four days before class had started. They walk along the asphalt, road devoid of most cars since he assumes most people are enjoying breakfast at home.

Soobin basks in the comfortable silence as they head toward the pet store. Now that he was better acquainted with Yeonjun and Beomgyu (which was a pretty impressive thing for him; becoming friends with people within just a few days) he no longer found silence with them stifling. 

Something he wished was different, though, was the weather. While the sun was bright in the sky, he felt the same eeriness that he did when he walked along the school corridors. Where there were shadows, they seemed darker, more present, a peculiar feeling of the darkness washing out the light. There was a slight chill in the air that he assumed came from Cullif’s local lake and the forest half-surrounding it that led up into the mountains.

“The pet shop owner’s a nice guy. He used to teach me maths when I was in middle school. Don’t know why he decided to take over the pet shop though,” Yeonjun says to Soobin. Beomgyu is sipping on an iced coffee. While Soobin’s pretty sure Beomgyu’s not that short, maybe around 5’11, there’s a certain way he looks in his oversized hoodie that makes him seem tinier.

They arrive at the pet shop and walk in. Soobin’s hit by the faint musty smell of animal fur, cage lining and various types of pet food, as well as a faintly lemony smell that reminds him of clean bathrooms.

Beomgyu says in a lowered voice, “Try not to mention the dogs. He gets pretty beat up about it.”

“Victor!” Yeonjun calls, and there’s a slight rustling from the back before someone pops their head out of the door. 

“Ah, nice to see you, Yeonjun, Beomgyu,” Victor greets pleasantly. Soobin bows his head slightly (he’s a man of habit) and Victor blinks owlishly at him. 

“This is Soobin. He’s here for a uni project,” Beomgyu introduces, and Victor’s eyebrows raise in acknowledgment. 

“Nice to meet you, Soobin. Now, what can I do for you today?”

“We just dropped by since we haven’t been here for awhile.” As Yeonjun and Beomgyu strike up a conversation with Victor, Soobin wanders off to look around the pet store. It’s small, like most stores in this town, and while there isn’t a huge variety of animals, there are enough to occupy his interest. 

“Everything going well recently?” He hears Yeonjun’s voice, and their conversation becomes a bit of white noise for Soobin as he squats down next to the cage of bunnies and tentatively reaches a finger through the bars, allowing a tan, medium sized bunny to sniff him. 

He stays there, marveling at how soft bunny fur is and smiling at their adorable little hops and one particular grey and white bunny that’s fast asleep in the corner. Yeonjun and Beomgyu’s conversation with the pet store owner drift past him as he catches snippets here and there.

“How— how are the dogs?” 

“Not very well. You see, I was really happy when we got Lucky and Muffin here, since they seemed so healthy and all. But…” 

A sad sigh, a lull in the conversation. Soobin pictures Yeonjun patting Victor’s shoulder sympathetically. 

“Few days ago, Lucky started eating less. Her fur was coming off in clumps. I separated the two, afraid that whatever Lucky had was contagious, but it was too late.” Another deep sigh. “The two of them are in the back now, both quarantined, and I’m doing all I can but maybe this town really ain’t cut out for dogs.”

“We’re always here to help if you need it,” Beomgyu’s warm tone supplies. “We’ll bring Kai, too. Didn’t you say they especially like his company?”

“Oh, yes! That boy’s always made the pets feel at ease.”

Kai. Soobin remembers that name...Taehyun’s best friend! Right.

Good job, the angel on his shoulder supplies.

He’s zoning out as he idly pokes at the bunnies and fails to hear or feel anything as someone comes up behind him.

“Soobin?” 

Soobin nearly jumps from the shock, but manages to keep it in. He turns to see Yeonjun, who crouches down next to him.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” Yeonjun coos, reaching a finger into the cage as well. “I’d get one, but I don’t think I’m very good with pets.”

“Me too. I mean, I’ve never had one, but it would be nice to have one. Even if it was, like, just a fish or something.”

They stay in silence for a little while, Yeonjun fawning quietly over the bunny that has come up to him and started nudging his finger with its little head.

“You know what? You kind of look like them!” Soobin looks at Yeonjun, confused. The pink-haired boy tilts his head in the direction of the bunny cage. 

“Hasn’t anyone ever said that? About you looking like a bunny?” Yeonjun asks, and no, Soobin thinks, it’s the first time he’s hearing that.

He’s about to respond when he hears Beomgyu approaching them.

“We’ll come over again to help out soon!” He’s saying, and both Soobin and Yeonjun take that as their cue to leave. They wave goodbye to Victor, who waves back and smiles especially at Soobin. 

“Has that always happened? With the dogs, I mean?” Soobin asks the minute they step out of the pet store. Yeonjun nods, his mood seeming a bit dampened.

“Told you. There are no dogs in this town. Just like outsiders, they never last for more than a month.” Beomgyu sighs. “Everything else, though? Perfectly fine.”

“Maybe it’s just something that the dogs are allergic to,” Soobin points out. Yeonjun glances at him with a bit of realization in the corners of his eyes. 

“Yeah, maybe.”

Soobin’s just following Yeonjun and Beomgyu, resembling a large, lost puppy. The town is so small that it seems like everyone knows each other, or maybe it’s just Yeonjun and Beomgyu, whose charisma is evident even to Soobin, who’s always been a bit oblivious to things like that. As they’re walking down the street, various store owners and other residents wave, smile or even stop for a conversation with either Yeonjun or Beomgyu, or both of them. This leaves Soobin at a bit of an awkward position, so he just stays silent with a nod and smile whenever one of them introduces him.

After awhile, Soobin reaches for his phone, but he starts to panic when all he feels is fabric and empty space. 

“Soobin? You okay?” Yeonjun asks, noticing the tall boy’s distress.

“My phone. I think it might have dropped when I bent down to look at the bunnies,” Soobin groans. They’ve been walking for about ten minutes, so Soobin makes the quick decision to run off from whence they came. “I’ll go get my phone real quick, just wait for me here!”

He’s already out of earshot by the time Beomgyu asks, “Wait, what?”.

Luckily for Soobin, he’s always had a decent sense of direction. Soon enough, he’s at the front of the store, and he can see a customer at the counter who Victor is chatting pleasantly to.

“Ah, Soobin, was it?” Victor looks past the customer and calls out to Soobin.

“Hey, uh, Victor? Sorry to trouble you, but I think I might have dropped my phone here by accident—”

“Oh, so it was yours? Good timing. I was thinking of calling Yeonjun or Beomgyu if they knew about it,” Victor hands Soobin a cellphone that he realizes is his in relief.

The customer has stayed silent this whole time, and Soobin feels bad that they were probably interrupted by his mistake, so he turns and bows slightly to the customer.

“Sorry about that,” he mutters in a low, apologetic tone.

The customer looks at him with an empty stare. 

_The hell_? Soobin thinks, almost more of a reflex than a conscious thought. He turns off to leave, and as Victor calls out a cheery, “See you soon!” behind him, he thinks— no, he knows and can feel the incessant stare of someone’s eyes boring into his retreating figure.

With a shudder, he closes the door behind him and walks away.

Try as he might, he can’t shake the eerie feeling that, somehow, he’s still being stared at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo i hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!! pls leave comments, they rlly make my day <3 have a great day and stay safe!!


	5. five: of sinks and sinking feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something catches the glare of the torchlight. 
> 
> A hand.
> 
> No,
> 
> A hand shaped charm.
> 
> six fingers?
> 
> Something hurts.
> 
> Then, everything does.
> 
> A scream, then— 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo!! slow update cos i wasn't satisfied with this chapter for a long time but here it finally is :D
> 
> keep an eye out for something creepy but not mentioned in this chapter ;) hint: it only happens to one of them
> 
> tw: mentions of knives, mild mention of death, kidnappings

When he gets back to Yeonjun and Beomgyu, he tries to school his expression into a calmer one, but it’s clearly not working as the two of them start looking concerned when they see him approach them.

“Was your phone not in the pet store?” Beomgyu asks. Soobin shakes his head, then clarifies what he meant.

“It was there. Just…” Soobin trails off, wondering if maybe he just met an unfriendly stranger who was having a bad day, or if there really was something wrong with that person that made his intuition go haywire. 

“Never mind. It’s nothing.” Both Yeonjun and Beomgyu look like they would rather eat pebbles than believe that half-assed diversion, but thankfully they leave it at that.

They continue walking, the atmosphere slightly more tense than before. 

After another five minutes, they step into a restaurant. It’s only slightly fancier than any other fast food joint, and after ordering their food, the three of them sit down at a booth near the back of the store.

They talk for a little while about some arbitrary things. Soobin finds out that Taehyun and Kai are 18 and Beomgyu is 19. They all met through Yeonjun. All four of them have known each other for about five years now. As interested as Soobin is in the conversation, the strange, glassy yet hostile look he was given in the pet store sticks with him, occupying half of his mind the whole time like a big, panting dog just running circles in his head. 

It’s so obvious that, just ten minutes into the conversation, Yeonjun sighs.

“Soobin. We may have just met, but it’s clear you’re hiding something. Were you aware that you’ve zoned out at least five times since coming back from the pet store?” Soobin raises his eyebrows in surprise. He thought he’d been hiding it pretty well— 

Ah. Right. Yeonjun’s whole intuition thing.

“I don’t like forcing people to talk, but whatever happened to you just now clearly disturbed you. Telling us might help.”

Beomgyu nods fervently. “Yeah. Even I can tell, and I don’t have super spidey senses like Yeonjun has, so…”

Soobin heaves a deep sigh, then frowns when he remembers exactly what happened just now. 

“I went into the store to ask if my phone was there, and there was another customer at the counter. Victor passed my phone back to me and I apologized to the other customer for interrupting, but he just stared at me like— like I wasn’t making sense. It felt like he was looking right through me, but he also looked like he wanted to hit me or something?” Soobin shrugs. “It just sort of freaked me out, I guess, but maybe he was just having a bad day? I mean, I did sort of cut him off, I think.”

Yeonjun shakes his head. “That’s really weird. The adults in this town can be spacey as hell, but they’re never straight up mean or hostile like that, let alone glare at you even after you apologized.”

“Did you hear what that customer was talking to Victor about before you asked about your phone?” Beomgyu asks, and Soobin shakes his head.

They sit in silence for a while as their food arrives. 

“Taehyun said he and Kai’ll meet us here,” Beomgyu reports, looking up from his phone. Yeonjun hums in response, his mouth too full to speak.

“How long have you guys started becoming so involved in this whole kidnapping thing?” Soobin asks after a sip of his drink. 

“Around a year ago, when Taehyun started realizing that the kidnappings were becoming more frequent.” Beomgyu waves his hand as he speaks. “We started keeping up with it and doing a whole lot more research just because we were scared at first and wanted to stay safe, but then more and more kids started going missing and the police weren’t doing anything, so we felt like we had to at least try.”

“Have they ever found any of the kidnapping victims after they went missing?”

Beomgyu shakes his head. “Not until today morning.”

Soobin felt chills go down his spine. An entire town with kids going missing more and more frequently— and yet nothing had ever turned up? 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Taehyun and another, taller kid walking toward them. He raises his hand in a small wave as they approach.

“Hey. Club ended early,” Taehyun says as he slides in next to Beomgyu. The tall kid tentatively sits next to Soobin.

“Soobin, Kai. Kai, Soobin.” Yeonjun introduces, and Kai flashes a bright smile at Soobin, who is only temporarily blinded by it. 

“Hey! My full name is Hueningkai, but I prefer Kai. Nice to meet you!”

“H-hi. Nice to meet you, too,” Soobin greets, a little thrown off by the change in atmosphere. This kid gave off the same energy as an energetic puppy, despite being only slightly shorter than Soobin. On the contrary, Taehyun emitted a sort of stable, grounded aura that Soobin wouldn’t have expected from the younger’s slightly smaller appearance.

“Kai and I actually thought of something on the way here,” Taehyun says, casually snagging a fry from Beomgyu’s tray, whose little yelp of indignation goes unnoticed by the younger. “We’ll talk about it back at Yeonjun’s place.”

“So you’re aware it’s  _ my _ place, then.” Yeonjun glares at Taehyun, but Soobin can tell that it’s in good nature. “Thought you might have forgotten since you spend more time there than school, probably.”

“Yeah. We should all move in at this point,” Beomgyu says, to which Yeonjun huffs in exasperation. 

“What’s up with the two of you and inviting yourselves into my humble abode?” He turns to look at Kai fondly. “See, Kai knows better. Taehyun, you should learn from him.”

“If I could learn something from Kai, I’d learn about how he shot up four inches within a year,” Taehyun shoots back. “He’s taller than you too, now.”

Yeonjun sputters in disbelief at that casual dig and Beomgyu high fives Taehyun. 

Soobin eats his fries, watching the friend group bicker on and Kai watching them amusedly. He’s never been one to get all chummy with anyone right off the bat, but as he watches them throw well-natured insults back and forth and Kai joining in, too, it occurs to him that he’s kind of lucky that he got roped into everything going on in this town with this particular group of friends.

—

“So. The identity of the last victim is Jack Foster. 19. He just started studying at the community college last month.” They’re back in Yeonjun’s apartment, and Taehyun is rattling off information as they gather in Yeonjun’s living room, the late afternoon sun spilling thick watery shafts of grey sunlight across the floorboards. 

“Victim before that: Lily Craigs. 17. Studied at the local high school. Before that, a kid named Charlie Jones, 6. Parents own that cafe next to the playground.” 

“Okay, so they all have nothing in common except for the fact that they’re dead?” Beomgyu frowns. Taehyun swats at him lightly. 

“No, you idiot. I’m getting there. We knew they didn’t have much in common from just that. Sure, they all went to the local schools, but then again, everyone does, so that was way too big of a range.”

“We thought it was random, but then we remembered something pretty important,” Kai continues. “It was just a random hunch, but I remembered that Lily was an only child, and then Taehyun remembered that there was a period of time where the cafe was closed because Mrs Jones lost what was supposed to be her second kid.”

Taehyun nods. “We found out that every single victim whose information we could get our hands on were all only-children.”

Yeonjun whistles lowly. “That’s pretty big.”

“Wait, that’s not right.” Beomgyu pipes up. “One of the victims was from my class in high school, and I remember he usually had to leave class straight away because he had to pick up his younger sister.”

“Yeah, we thought of that too, since one of the victims we knew from middle school had an older brother,” Kai says. “So it’s a bit of a weak point, but it’s a start.”

“Well, they could have been adopted, right?” Soobin surprises himself, but he continues as he connects the dots in his mind. “If they were adopted, or their sibling was, then it would still be within this kidnapper’s criteria.”

Taehyun immediately pulls out his phone, and Beomgyu looks over the younger’s shoulder as he starts typing. 

“Why only-children, though?” Yeonjun muses. Kai shrugs. 

“That’s what I wanna know. It’s kind of a strange criteria, not to mention you’re an only child, so you should probably start being more careful,” he directs this at Yeonjun, who waves a hand dismissively. 

“You know me. Careful is my middle name,” Yeonjun says with a wolfish smile. 

“Okay, found it,” Taehyun says. “Phoebe, our middle school classmate, was adopted by her aunt and uncle after her parents passed away when she was a baby. Your classmate, who I’m assuming is Im Minhee, is not adopted, but his younger sister is,” Taehyun reads off his screen. Soobin is still wondering how and where Taehyun gets his information from. 

They’re quiet for a second as they think about this newest development.

“Seems pretty cult-ish to me,” Beomgyu says. “Ever since I saw that picture. S’ been giving me the creeps ever since.” 

“I’ve never heard of any cults in the town, though. You’d think that would be a pretty well-known thing,” Yeonjun points out.

Soobin silently agrees. He remembers an event that happened a few years ago back in the city, when a certain well-known company CEO was exposed to be the ringleader of a cult, which was how he managed to fund his spendings. It made such big news that he couldn’t go a day without hearing about it—whether from a classmate, his parents, a neighbour, etc. 

“If it happened long ago, and no one talks about it anymore, then it’s pretty likely for us not to have heard about it,” Taehyun muses. 

The thought seems to strike them at the same time, even Soobin. 

“Library?” Beomgyu raises an eyebrow, and Kai nods. “Yup. We’ve never checked out the library.”

“I haven’t been to the library since second grade,” Yeonjun mumbles.

“Well, it’s time to change that!” Taehyun grins. “Let’s go tomorrow.”

So they make plans to go to the library tomorrow to find more information about the town. 

“I think I should head back. I have to complete an assignment,” Soobin stands up, and Beomgyu pouts. 

“You’re not staying for dinner?” he asks, and Soobin smiles apologetically as he shakes his head. “If I procrastinate any longer, I’ll probably end up rushing everything. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, though!”

After bidding goodbye to the four other boys, he heads back to his apartment. 

The sun is hanging low in the sky, so low that all Soobin can see is a faint orange glow tinting the bottom of the horizon as deep indigo slowly spills across the late evening sky.

He hasn’t stopped feeling uneasy. Ever since he stepped foot into the town, there’s been an uncomfortable uneasiness that had made its home in his gut. 

He walks back to his apartment, trying hard to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. 

_ You’re just worried about assignments,  _ he reassures himself as he unlocks the door. 

He put his things down and headed to the bathroom, his mind occupied the whole time.

_ It was a bad idea to come here.  _ The tiny angel on his shoulder complains. For once, the tiny devil stays silent in grudging agreement.

_ I had no choice.  _ Soobin argues, turning on the tap and lathering his hands with soap.  _ I didn’t wanna be  _ that  _ kid—  _

_ Creak.  _

Soobin straightens up, his hands covered in suds. 

Trick of the mind? 

The rushing of water from the tap is loud, but his ears are ringing in fear.

It was probably just his imagination, right?

No. He doesn’t want to scare himself, but he’d heard a creak for sure. 

It came from behind him, and he steels himself, ready to turn behind.

3,

2,

1.

He turns.

There’s nothing there.  _ Of course,  _ he chastises himself, turning back around and turning on the tap with soapy hands. 

Looking at himself in the mirror, he stares into his own eyes.

_ Stop freaking yourself out. You’re not gonna last four months if you’re pissing yourself at every little sound you hear. _

It was an old building after all.

Soobin shakes his head and dries his hands before exiting the bathroom.

He makes a promise to himself.  _ You’re gonna finish your work. You’re not going to freak out just because of some noises an old apartment makes. You’re gonna sleep tonight, and then you’re going to go to the library tomorrow with the others to find the  _ totally human  _ culprit behind everything. _

He ends up only following one promise.

— 

_ Wait, no—  _

_ Please!  _ A muffled shriek, a crunch of soil under heavy shoes.

The words stop when something is shoved into her mouth, but the crying continues.

It’s  _ cold.  _

Cold air, cold flesh, a cold whisper of a blade— 

Something catches the glare of the torchlight. 

A hand.

No,

A hand shaped charm.

six fingers?

Something hurts.

Then, everything does.

A scream, then— 

_ A whisper: _

_ soon. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all enjoyed that chapter!! only five chapters in so far but i think im pretty happy with how the plot is going.
> 
> please leave comments!! they make my day <3 stay safe and thank you all for reading!!


	6. six: of bad dreams and new findings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay, now can you tell me what happened?” Yeonjun asks, arms crossed but his eyes soft. Soobin’s the one frowning this time. 
> 
> “Nothing, why?”
> 
> “Soobin…” Yeonjun starts. He tilts his head to one side, clearly confused. “You were screaming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a slightly fluffier chapter cos i remembered that yeonbin n taegyu have almost never been mentioned lol. it's a good point in the book to add some more to their dynamic since it helps with the plot :D
> 
> also this is the longest chapter so far lol enjoy
> 
> tw: talk of knives, description of being killed?? basically talk of violence

“Soobin?”

Soobin’s head hurts and his ears are ringing.

Who’s calling him?

Faintly, among the knocking on his door and the shooting migraine through his skull, he sees the barely-there, savoy blue sky through the gap in his curtains.

It’s barely light out.

What happened?

“Soobin?” he hears again. 

Struggling to clear his head of its cloudiness and throbbing pain, he calls out weakly. “Yeah, hold on, be right there.”

He forces himself to stand up and walk to the front door.

When he opens it, he sees pink hair.

“Yeonjun?” he murmurs blearily. The older boy looks worried, and from the looks of it, he’d just woke up, too. He’s squinting the way someone does when they’ve just woken up and their eyes can’t open all the way, yet Soobin can see the concern on his face.

“Did something happen?” Soobin asks, voice still raspy. Yeonjun looks at him like he doesn’t understand the question.

“I should be asking you that.” Yeonjun frowns. Soobin blinks once, hard, trying to wake himself up.

“Uh, you should come in.” Soobin suddenly remembers his manners and steps aside so that Yeonjun can walk in, which he does, albeit slightly hesitatingly.

“Okay, now can you tell me what happened?” Yeonjun asks, arms crossed but his eyes soft. Soobin’s the one frowning this time. 

“Nothing, why?”

“Soobin…” Yeonjun starts. He tilts his head to one side, clearly confused. “You were screaming.”

Soobin’s head is cleared by that.

“Screaming?” he screws his eyes shut, trying to remember. 

Cold.

Crunch on soil.

A hand… 

“I might have had a nightmare,” Soobin says. “But from what I remember, there was no reason for me to scream.”

Yeonjun just wraps his hoodie closer to himself.

“What do you remember?”

A torchlight.

A voice…

What was it saying?

“Um, it was outside.” Soobin starts, trying to remember. “I was outside, I mean, but I— I don’t think I was myself.”

Yeonjun raises his eyebrows. “You mean you were dreaming through someone else?”

“Something like that. I could see what was happening, but I could feel and— I could hear? What she was hearing.”

Soobin winces at an aching pang through his head, then his eyes widen when he remembers another sort of pain, a sharper, more brittle one.

“Pain,” he murmurs. Yeonjun leans closer at the barely audible whisper, perplexed. 

“I remember feeling pain,” Soobin says, slightly louder. “It was horrible. I— I think that’s why I was screaming.”

His hands start to shake when he remembers what happened and Yeonjun gently takes the younger’s hands in his own, gently smoothing over the back of them with his thumbs.

“It’s okay. Nothing happened to you. It was just a dream,” he soothes. Soobin wants to say he’s fine, but he knows he’d be lying.

He wasn’t fine. He could still feel the sharp blade against his flesh, the ache that turned into a burn as it pressed deeper. He felt the rawness of his throat after the scream that tore through it, the sharp stones in the cold soil pressing into his skin…

Only that wasn’t him.

So what the hell was it, then?

“I’m okay.” Soobin takes a deep breath. Almost unconsciously, his index finger is tapping out a shaky rhythm on the back of Yeonjun’s hand, the way it did whenever he was nervous or in deep thought.

“You wanna sit down? Here, wait, I’ll get you some water.” Yeonjun makes Soobin sit down (on his own couch, in his own living room, mind you) and walks to the kitchen to get a glass of water. While waiting for the elder, Soobin closes his eyes and puts his head in his hands, trying to remember exactly what the dream was about.

A knife, the crunch of soil, cold blade cold air cold skin, a flashlight… 

“The hand!” he says abruptly, and Yeonjun tilts his head as he sets the glass of water down and sits next to Soobin. 

“A hand?” He frowns, curious. Soobin nods as he takes a gulp of water, thankful for the way it cooled and soothed his gravelly throat.

“Not, like, a hand hand.” Soobin clarifies, feeling better now that he could clearly distinguish the dream and reality. “It was a… a keychain, I think? Like a charm of a hand.”

“That’s weird. And specific.” Yeonjun says, still frowning.

“It had six fingers. I think that’s why I remembered it,” Soobin says. 

When reality settles in further, Soobin pales slightly. “I don’t think it was just a regular nightmare. It was…” he gulps. “It was too real. It was like I was there, like I was the one getting—”

A pause, and a deep breath.

“Like I was the one getting killed.”

At that, Yeonjun sighs in disbelief. 

“I don’t know if you’ve had one, but that sounds like a precognitive dream to me.” 

“You’re probably right,” Soobin makes an exasperated noise. 

“It’s good that nothing happened to you. Your scream was so loud, it sounded like—” Yeonjun shuddered. “Never mind. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“How did you know it was me?” Soobin asks. “It could have been anyone else in the building.”

“Intuition, remember?” Yeonjun smiles weakly. “The moment I heard it, I knew it was you. I don’t know how I’m the only one awake, though. You screamed pretty damn loudly.”

“Sorry,” Soobin says sheepishly, but Yeonjun just waves a hand. “It’s not your fault. I’m not blaming you.”

“Actually, I think I had something similar happen before. Just yesterday, too,” Soobin recalls, and Yeonjun leans closer, interested.

“I don’t remember what happened in the dream at all, but I do remember feeling sort of like this when I woke up. Kind of...disoriented. It wasn’t as vivid, though, and I didn’t get headaches or anything.”

“What did you remember from it?” Yeonjun asks, and Soobin frowns.

“Nothing. Nothing apart from this really painful sounding scream.” He shudders when he remembers it, both the scream from last night and the one he had heard echoing in his mind two days ago. 

Yeonjun hums. “Very interesting. And you’ve never had a precognitive dream before?”

“None that I can remember, I guess,” Soobin shrugs. “I’m just worried for whoever it was in the dream. The scream I heard two days ago was female, too.”

“Well, when we can’t figure something out, we have two solutions.” Yeonjun says, standing up and stretching. 

Soobin looks at him in confusion.

“First, there’s the internet,” Yeonjun says as Soobin walks him to the door and opens it for him.

“Then, there’s Kang Taehyun.” he grins. “See you in a bit.”

— 

When Soobin is less rattled, he finally gets ready and gets dressed.

They’d agreed to meet at 12pm and head to the library together, so by 11:45am he’s ready and heads to Yeonjun’s apartment. 

Taehyun and Beomgyu are already in Yeonjun’s apartment when Soobin reaches, and they’re next to each other on the sofa, Beomgyu’s arm slung over Taehyun’s shoulders comfortably as they look at something on Taehyun’s phone.

“Hey. Feeling okay?” Yeonjun asks gently, closing the door behind him. Soobin nods, then yawns. 

“Just tired.”

“I mean, you would be after a dream like that.” Soobin sits down, across from Taehyun and Beomgyu, and they sit up straighter at his approach.

“What exactly do you remember seeing?” Taehyun jumps straight into the brunt of things, and Soobin starts telling them what he remembers. After washing his face and waking himself up, he somehow managed to remember even larger chunks of his dream, and was able to string together a coherent explanation.

Halfway through, Kai arrives, and Soobin is forced to repeat everything he’d just said. He doesn’t mind, though. He’s never been the easily annoyed type.

“...And then I heard Yeonjun calling me, so I woke up.” he finishes. 

“That sounds scary.” Beomgyu shudders.

“The hand? You said it had six fingers?” Taehyun asks, and Soobin nods. The blond hums, clearly aware of something.

“Six fingers is a known symbol of good luck, but six fingers on the left hand is also a bringer of misfortune,” Taehyun says, as if he just had this information readily available. While the others seem used to it, Soobin is still a little stunned and pretty impressed.

“Do you remember anything else? Any details? Could you hear anything?” Taehyun asks, and Beomgyu nudges him. 

“He barely managed to remember what he saw, don’t rush him,” to which Taehyun shrugs in acceptance. 

“I only remember hearing a scream. Anything else…” Soobin closes his eyes, trying to recall. “I heard a crunch, like when you step on dry soil with rocks in it. I— she was pleading at first. She was begging, then whoever it was stuffed her mouth with something. I-I remember a dog barking. That’s all.” 

“A dog barking?” Taehyun asks. Soobin realizes a beat late that that in itself is already extremely strange. 

“Y-yeah, a dog barking. I remember it because the killer dropped their flashlight when they heard a loud bark, not loud like it was actually close by but loud enough that we could hear it from where we were.”

“A dog barking, huh?” Taehyun seems to fade off into deep thought. 

“If it really was a precognitive dream, we’d hear about it soon,” Kai says. “Let’s just go to the library and look for what we can for now.”

With that, the five of them head to the library.

The weather is the same as it’s always been in the entire week that Soobin has been here: slightly chilly, the sun bright, the shadows darker than they should be. Yeonjun drives and Taehyun’s in the front seat with directions. Despite it being a public library, there were no directions to be found online, so Taehyun had to work his magic to get them from who knows where.

“Turn left here then keep going straight,” Taehyun instructs, and Yeonjun follows. 

“The library is further than I remembered,” Beomgyu quips, and Yeonjun makes a sound of agreement from the driver’s seat. 

“Why would a public library be so far away from the center of town? Shouldn’t it be more readily accessible?” Kai wonders, and Soobin frowns. 

“Back home, there was a library at my uni itself. I knew there wouldn’t be a private library at the community college, but I didn’t expect the public library to be so far, either.”

As they drive past neighbourhoods and new streets, Soobin looks out the window. He’s never been to this part of Cullif. It’s not like he had any reason to.

The neighbourhoods are few and far between. Soobin only saw two after they left the town’s center, and the rest of the houses were standalone bungalows. He caught sight of a couple rundown, abandoned buildings that looked like they had been deserted for a while. There were just trees and bare ground everywhere else, and in the near distance, he saw the rolling forests that adorned the slopes of the mountain. 

“We’re almost there. Right,” Taehyun says simply, and Yeonjun follows his directions. After a few more minutes, a large, old building looms into view. 

“Finally,” Beomgyu says as Kai whistles lowly. 

“I forgot how huge it was. I'd never seen a building this big apart from the community college,” Yeonjun says as he parks smoothly a few ways down from the street in front of the building. 

“Time to find out if it’s worth all that space,” Taehyun says drily, and they get out of the car.

There’s a row of steps leading up to the door to the library, and the inside of the library looks dark even through the tinted glass of the doors. 

“I’ve never been here,” Taehyun says, his voice dropping naturally as they entered. 

The ceilings were extremely high. As opposed to a regular two-storied layout, this library had high ceilings and a loft-like balcony filled with shelves pushed against the wall that ran along the inner circumference of the whole library. 

“Hello, looking for anything?” a man’s voice calls out softly. They turn to see a man approaching them from around the counter. He’s tall, but not taller than Soobin, and has skin the colour of cinnamon with wrinkles like tree bark etched around his mouth in smile lines and around his eyes as well. His eyes shine through his glasses, and all Soobin thinks is: A picture of him probably shows up next to the definition of ‘librarian’ on Google. 

“Hi! We’ll just be looking around. Nothing in particular,” Taehyun says politely and breezily. Beomgyu nudges Taehyun, clearly confused, but the blond just tugs at the elder’s sweater sleeve as a signal not to say anything. 

“Nice to hear. I haven’t gotten people here in a long time. No one uses the library anymore, it seems,” the man chuckles. “I’m Mr. Amon. Just head to the counter if you’re having any trouble.”

“Thanks, Mr. Amon,” Yeonjun says, and Mr. Amon heads back behind the counter. The five of them walk further into the library, past the tables near the front and toward the rows and rows of shelves at the back.

“Tyun, I thought we were gonna ask about cults,” Beomgyu hisses. Taehyun shrugs. 

“We should look for stuff on our own first. Also, asking him about something like a cult right off the bat would make us seem like we’re just here for some sensationalist news, not actual reading. What librarian would want to hear about that?”

As always, Taehyun is right. They split up: Yeonjun and Beomgyu head toward the newspaper section while Soobin and Kai check out the local biographies section, and Taehyun heads off to check the yearbooks, strangely enough. 

“Where do we start?” Soobin asks in a low voice. Kai shrugs as he takes a random book off a shelf. 

“Since we don’t know where to start, starting from anywhere would be the same.”

Soobin can’t argue with that logic. 

For the next hour, they go back and forth among the shelves, picking books that seemed the most relevant and putting them back when they fail to find anything helpful. Occasionally, Taehyun wanders over, a couple of books and papers in his hands, and then walks away to another section. 

‘My neck hurts,” Soobin whispers. Kai stretches subtly, which is hard when you have limbs as long as his, and winces when his neck cracks. 

In a way, Soobin ponders as he chooses another book, this is a little nostalgic. While he’d never had to actually use the library for information, what with the internet and all, just being in a library made him think about middle and high school. The labyrinth of shelves, the floor, carpeted to avoid any loud footsteps, the dimness that every library seemed to bask in. 

The only thing he wasn’t used to was the dead silence.

If it weren’t for Kai’s muffled footsteps and occasional hums or sighs, Soobin could’ve sworn that someone had pulled earmuffs over his head the moment he walked between the shelves. There was no faint whirring of the air conditioning, no low murmurs of students whispering among each other, no cheers and yells from the students playing outside the library.

Just like almost everywhere else in this town, he felt uneasy.

However, uneasiness seemed to be the norm now.

“Soobin,” Kai whispers, and Soobin turns around. Kai’s holding a book open in his hands, and while Soobin can’t see the title of the book, the crammed walls of small text on the page already make his head spin. 

“I may have found something. It’s not a lot, but…” Kai points to a certain break in the paragraph, and Soobin leans closer over his shoulder to read it. 

“1976, December 9th. This date marks the commemoration of the day Choi Si-woo saved the town of Cullif from decades of turmoil. Shown below is a picture of the annual parade. Choi Si-woo took a great risk and will forever be remembered as willing to sacrifice himself in order to save the town from the clutches of evil; from the claws of the unnamed Ringmaster.”

There’s a grainy, black and white picture under the short paragraph of text, but Soobin’s mind is reeling too much and too quickly to take a good look at it.

“Choi Si-woo?” he asks, trying to keep his voice low despite his surprise. “That’s my great grandfather.”

“No way. For real?” Kai’s eyes widen. “Wait, that’s pretty big. Could the Ringmaster be, like, the leader of a cult, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Soobin replies, still in a daze. Perhaps it was the sheer shock of seeing a familiar name in such an unfamiliar place, but he can’t really wrap his head around the fact that his great grandfather had done something so applaudable. 

Yeonjun and Beomgyu approach them then, and Yeonjun tilts his head in the direction of the door. 

“We only found something pretty damn trivial, but Beomgyu managed to get a picture of it since it was just a small article.” Yeonjun noticed Soobin, who apparently still looks a little confused and surprised. “What happened to him?”

“We—”

“Hey.” Taehyun pops up behind them, and it’s clear from Kai’s widened eyes that he had nearly yelped. “I think I found something. I need to borrow these books, though. Let’s go.”

Kai snaps a quick picture of the paragraph he found as well as the cover of the book and tucks his phone into his pocket, following closely behind Taehyun as the other three lag slightly behind. 

Beomgyu nudges Soobin. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Soobin breathes out. “Yeah, I am. I’ll tell you guys in the car.”

“Everything alright, I hope?” Mr. Amon passes the registered books back to Taehyun, who accepts them with a smile and a nod. 

“Yeah. I think we found what we’re looking for,” Yeonjun says with an easy grin. Mr. Amon smiles. 

“That’s good to hear. It’s not everyday a young group of boys such as yourself come along to my library. Actually, the only other boys who came by recently decided to egg the front steps for fun,” Mr Amon says with a sigh. 

“Anyway, I’m glad you found what you needed.” Mr Amon nods at them. “Now, you all stay safe out there, alright?”

“Thanks, Mr Amon.” Taehyun replies, and the boys all say their short, respective goodbyes as they make their way to Yeonjun’s car. 

“I’ll sit in the back. Reading in the front makes my head hurt.” Taehyun slips into the backseat, Beomgyu after him, then Kai.

“Uh, don’t you need the directions?” Soobin asks Yeonjun as he gets into the passenger seat. The pink-haired boy just shakes his head with an easygoing smile. 

“Comes with the intuition, I think. I go somewhere once and it’s already muscle memory for me.” Yeonjun flashes a cute grin at Soobin, who feels obliged to smile back.

“Okay, Soobin. What happened just now?” Beomgyu asks, and Soobin tells them. 

“Kai found a paragraph in this book. Something about a parade celebrating the day Choi Si-woo ‘saved the town from the clutches of evil’ or something.” Soobin starts. “Only, Choi Si-woo is my great grandfather.”

“You sure?” Beomgyu asks. “Could be a coincidence, right?”

“Beom, Cullif is a predominantly white town. We make up 80% of the Asian population. I’m pretty sure the situation was worse way back then. How many ‘Choi Si-woo’s would there be?” Taehyun says evenly, his eyes not leaving the book in front of him even once. Beomgyu just pouts and accepts defeat.

“Yeah. I don’t know what exactly he did, or why not one of my family members ever brought it up, but then again, I never asked, I guess,” Soobin says. 

“That’s not the only thing we found,” Kai pipes up. “The person Choi Si-woo ‘defeated’ was apparently someone named the Ringmaster. It’s a nickname, obviously, but doesn’t it sound sort of like a cult leader’s title? Something cheesy like that.”

“That does make sense,” Yeonjun hums. “But why wouldn’t we have heard about anything? Isn’t it a little weird for something as big as a cult to happen in our tiny town and yet not one word from anyone, ever?”

“90% of the adults in this town are too spacey to even remember something like closing up shop,” Beomgyu says. “I don’t think they remember it, even if it was something that big.”

The rest of the drive is silent. Soobin looks out of the window again, and Yeonjun hums along quietly to the song playing softly through the car’s speakers. There’s the occasional page flip from Taehyun in the backseat. When Soobin glances in the rearview mirror, he sees Kai with his eyes closed, his earphones in, and Beomgyu, who’s fallen asleep against Taehyun’s shoulder.

He turns back around. 

“Cute, huh?” Yeonjun says casually, and Soobin shrugs. He didn’t want to assume anything, nor did he want to pry, but Yeonjun laughs quietly. 

“They’ve been at it for a hot minute now. Cute and all, but you gotta wonder why neither of them have made a move yet,” Yeonjun says this last bit slightly louder, to which Taehyun sighs. 

“Not that loud. You’ll wake him up,” Taehyun murmurs. 

Yeonjun smirks and glances at Soobin for a second, as if to say, See? Told you.

“They’ve known each other for years. Even I have no idea when they started being all— well, like that with each other, but it’s been too long anyway.”

“How did you all meet?” Soobin asks curiously. It was a little strange to have such a diverse age group among friends, unless they’d happened to all meet at school.

“Okay, so Taehyun and I met when I was three and he was in the womb,” Yeonjun laughs a little at his own joke and Soobin can’t help but smile at the elder laughing at his own quip. “Taehyun and Kai met in kindergarten. Been inseparable ever since, until I met Beomgyu at high school. Not from club or anything, but because he was dared to come up to me and asked me if I used KoolAid on my hair, which was blue at the time.” Soobin laughs at that, and the corners of Yeonjun’s lips lift in an appreciative smirk. 

“Then a few months later, Beomgyu meets Taehyun and Kai when I drop by Taehyun’s house to pass something to my aunt. That’s how all of us met.” 

“That’s… really nice.” Soobin looks at his hands, which had ended up in his lap, the nails of his index fingers picking at the skin next to his thumbnails. 

“You okay?” Yeonjun asks, his playful tone from before now soft and concerned. Soobin didn’t think his emotions were that obvious, but it must have been the intuition thing. 

“Yeah. Just… I wish I have what you guys have is all.” Soobin bites at his lip. “I’m not very good at making friends, and I guess I just look intimidating or whatever, cos no one really came up to me either. In high school, a couple of kids were still nice enough to try. But because I’d never really learned how to make friends,” Soobin sighs, wondering why he’s still telling this story, why Yeonjun’s even listening, “So I sucked at like, being a friend, basically. I hung out with them, but that was it, you know? Then I obviously lost contact with them the moment I got into uni.”

“Hey,” Yeonjun says softly, and although he isn’t saying anything, Soobin’s pretty sure that Taehyun was listening, too. “You do have what we have. You have us, dumbass.”

“I’ve been here for, like, ten days or something,” Soobin says in disbelief. 

“Friendship isn’t measured by time,” Taehyun says softly but steadily. “If you click, you click. You feel comfortable around us, right? No pressure?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Soobin says. 

“Great. That’s all you need right now. Friendship isn’t a race,” Taehyun says with finality, and Soobin turns behind to smile gratefully, but Taehyun’s already gone back to reading his book.

“He’s right. Besides, I’m never wrong about stuff like that. Just trust me, yeah? Trust us,” Yeonjun says.

Soobin could tear up at this point. 

“Thanks.” is all he can say, afraid that if he said any more he might actually start tearing up.

The rest of the ride is still quiet, but Soobin doesn’t mind it now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo hohO i hope y'all enjoyed that extra long chapter!! i was rlly inspired throughout this chapter (and the next hehe) and just kept writing,, then couldn't figure out how to split this into two chapters so here u go lol 4k words
> 
> rmb to leave comments if u have anything to say!! i love reading them and they truly make my day... wow that rhymed okay take care stay safe and have a good day <3


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